Egg trade glossary

Every term you will hear in the Indian egg trade, in plain English. Deep-link any definition — each term has its own anchor.

Prices and pricing

NECC: The National Egg Co-ordination Committee. A body of Indian poultry farmers, founded in May 1982 by Dr B. V. Rao, that publishes a suggested egg price each day for every major Indian egg market. Its rates are advisory, not mandatory.
Suggested rate: NECC's daily recommended price for a market. Nobody is obliged to buy or sell at it. NECC's own disclaimer describes its prices as “merely suggestive and not mandatory”.
Farm gate price: What the farmer actually receives, before any trader's margin. Usually at or slightly below the NECC rate.
Wholesale rate: The price at which eggs change hands in bulk at a market. The NECC rate is a wholesale reference.
Retail rate: What you pay at a shop. Always above the wholesale rate, because it includes transport to the shop, handling, breakage and the shopkeeper's margin.
Declared rate: The NECC rate for a given market on a given day, as published.

Piece: One egg. The base unit for NECC quotations.
Tray: Thirty eggs, in a moulded pulp tray arranged six across and five down. Also called a carton or a crate. The most common unit in Indian egg trade.
Half tray: Fifteen eggs.
Peti: A case of 210 eggs — seven trays. Also written petti, or called a box or a case. The standard unit for bulk movement between cities.
Per 100: A quotation for one hundred eggs. Common in wholesale negotiation.
Dozen: Twelve eggs. A retail-chain and e-commerce unit borrowed from Western packaging. Not used in the Indian wholesale trade.

Collection centre: A city or town where NECC declares a daily rate, because enough eggs trade there for a price to be meaningful. India has 34.
Production centre: A market surrounded by poultry farms, where eggs originate. Rates are lower here. Examples: Namakkal, Barwala, East and West Godavari, Warangal.
Consumption centre: A large city that mainly eats eggs rather than producing them. Rates are higher because eggs arrive by truck. Examples: Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Ranchi.
Deficit market: A market where local production falls well short of local demand, so eggs must be brought in. Eastern India has several.
Surplus region: A region producing more eggs than it consumes, which ships the balance elsewhere. Coastal Andhra Pradesh and Namakkal are the largest.
Production belt: A cluster of poultry farms dense enough to set the price for a whole region. India has four major ones: Namakkal (Tamil Nadu), coastal Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad–Warangal (Telangana), and Barwala (Haryana).

Layer: A hen kept for laying eggs. Distinct from a broiler, which is kept for meat.
Broiler: A chicken raised for meat.
Table egg: An ordinary egg meant for eating. Distinct from a hatching egg, which is fertilised and meant to become a chick.
Hatching egg: A fertilised egg intended for incubation. Not sold for eating.
Cull bird: A hen sold for meat once her laying rate drops, usually after 70–80 weeks. Cull bird sales are a meaningful part of a layer farm's income.
Lay rate / laying percentage: The share of a flock laying on a given day. A healthy commercial flock runs high; heat and disease pull it down.
Feed: What the hen eats — mainly maize and soya meal. Feed is roughly 60–70% of the cost of producing an egg, which is why maize prices drive egg prices.
Chick / DOC: A day-old chick. A layer farm's cost cycle starts here, months before the first egg.
Grading: Sorting eggs by size and quality before sale. Larger and cleaner eggs fetch a premium above the NECC rate.

White egg: The standard commercial table egg in India. The NECC rate refers to this.
Brown egg: An egg with a brown shell, laid by certain hen breeds. Usually sold at a premium. Nutritionally near-identical to a white egg — the colour is genetic, not dietary.
Desi / country egg: An egg from a native or backyard-reared hen. Sold at a premium. Unlike commercial farm eggs, these may be fertilised if roosters are present in the flock.
Unfertilised egg: An egg laid by a hen that has not mated. It contains no embryo and cannot develop into a chick. Virtually all commercially sold eggs in India are unfertilised.
Fertilised egg: An egg that could develop into a chick under incubation. Rare in commercial retail.

FSSAI: The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. Sets India's food labelling rules, including the green and brown veg / non-veg marks. Food containing egg carries the non-vegetarian mark.
CCI: The Competition Commission of India. In January 2022 it held that NECC's method of declaring rates amounted to price-fixing under the Competition Act, 2002, and directed NECC to state clearly that its prices are only suggestions.
Zone: A regional grouping used within NECC's structure. Rates have historically been coordinated at zonal level.
Export benchmark: The rate against which export deals are struck. Namakkal is India's export benchmark, being the source of the large majority of the country's egg exports and closest to the southern ports.

Per-egg rate: The NECC quotation, in rupees per single egg. Everything else is multiplication: × 15 for a half tray, × 30 for a tray, × 100 for a hundred, × 210 for a peti.
Day-on-day change: How today's rate compares with yesterday's for the same market. More informative than the level alone.
Seasonal average: The average rate for a given calendar month across many years. Tells you whether today is dear or cheap by that market's own historical standards.
All-time high / low: The highest and lowest rate on record for a market. Our archive runs from February 2009.

Where do the numbers themselves come from? Read where our rates come from — or the FAQ for the questions people actually ask.